BIG, our new Great Pyrenees puppy, is three months old. He’s getting BIG and he’s awkward—physically and socially.

He’s a farm-dog-in-training and mostly taking to it. He tags along behind Sam, his five-year-old Pyrenees role model. He barks when Sam barks. He digs when Sam digs. He pees when Sam pees.

Sam’s okay with his new mentoring job, as long as BIG doesn’t get too much in his face. When BIG overdoes puppy enthusiasm (which he easily does) and starts chewing on Sam’s ear, Sam turns and roars at BIG, literally rolling BIG onto his back. BIG shakes his head—you can tell he’s thinking about what just happened—and lies down, takes a little breather, and slowly work his way back into Sam’s shadow.

Yoda, our low-slung Corgi with the giganto ears, is BIG-time jealous of BIG. I’m a little surprised. Yoda’s generally laid back and protective of newborn critters. But BIG is soaking up too much affection for Yoda’s finer self to show. Yoda barely tolerates the little guy. In a few months, when BIG weighs about a hundred pounds, Yoda may wish that he’d been a little nicer.

I keep saying, “What goes around, comes around.” But Yoda’s not paying attention. He lies at the edge of the porch, sulking.

One of these days he’ll wish he’d listened to me.

Annie’s fractured humerus is throbbing—an intensely painful experience.

Annie and I are learning about pain management. It’s a sore subject.

Too much pain medication makes Annie loopy and nauseous. Too much nausea causes vomiting. Vomiting leads to dehydration. Dehydration leads to the hospital for intravenous fluids. Not pretty.

Too little pain medication is…well…too painful. Pain leads to nausea. Nausea leads to vomiting. And on and on.

I guess you see what I’m talking about. It’s a balancing act. And the balance is always changing based on what Annie’s eaten, time of day, healing progress…and the alignment of Sirius with Jupiter near as I can figure it.

We’ve learned a lot. I’m ready to move on to the next lesson.

Whoever said this was right: “Tough times will tell your friends.” Many thanks to all who’ve called, emailed, stopped by, stayed with Annie while I ran errands, and delivered flowers. Your good cheer and assistance are much appreciated. A special thanks to the Walla Walla Fire Department, the Touchet Volunteer Fire Department, and the Emergency Room at St. Mary Hospital here in Walla Walla. You’re all great.

Best,
Sam

We had a bad day here at the farm on Sunday. Annie fell off my horse, Bo, and planted her left shoulder in the dirt, resulting in a broken arm.

“Just a broken arm. No big deal,” you might say.

That’s what I was saying at first. But this is a nasty one and I’m still scurrying around, trying to make the patient comfortable.

This is my first significant stint as nurse and maid. The doctor says it could go on for weeks. I find that I’m not all that good at it, but it seems I’ll have more time than I’d like to improve my skills.

The silliest thing I’ve done so far is giving Annie a little bell to ring when she needs something. I’m afraid she’s really taken to it.

Oops, sorry. There’s that ringing noise again. Gotta go.

“Yes, sweetheart. I’m coming.”

I decided to make gravlax yesterday—essentially salt-cured salmon. I’ve made it several times before and have, over time, settled on a curing blend of salt, sugar, black pepper, and lots of dill weed.  It’s delicious. It’s easy. And it looks fancy. Makes other folks think you’re some kind of whiz in the kitchen.

There are lots of gravlax recipes—many on the internet. I started my gravlax adventures several years ago with the recipe from James Peterson’s book, Fish & Shellfish, but, over time, found myself using more dill than he suggests and adding freshly-ground black pepper. It’s all a matter of taste.

Instead of wrapping my salmon in aluminum foil as he suggests, I use plastic wrap. I put the wrapped fish in a casserole dish, and then look around for something heavy to place on top of the fish to press out unwanted liquid while it’s curing in the refrigerator. In the past I’ve used great big heavy cans of chili or pork & beans, but that never seemed quite right—refrigerating these cans and then, after the curing’s over (48 hours later), taking the cans out of the refrigerator and putting them back on the shelf.  I can’t figure out why there’d be anything wrong with doing that, but it doesn’t seem right.

So, I started off to do some research on the subject of refrigerating canned goods and had an intervening bright idea. These things rarely happen to me, so I jumped on it. I took two red house bricks, washed them off in the sink, let them dry, and double-wrapped them in foil. I then placed the foil-wrapped bricks on my salmon. They work great. They’re in the refrigerator doing their job right now. And I can re-use the bricks for the next batch of gravlax, or country paté, or whatever.

Now it dawns on me that I may have seen this brick-thing done somewhere and it’s not really my bright idea. It’s probably somebody else’s. But that’s okay, I don’t have to do the research on refrigerating canned goods and I don’t really care where the brick idea came from.  So, I’m going take my newfound free time and sit on the porch and have a beer instead.

We call my brother-in-law “Big Frank” because…well…he’s big.  “Bigger than life,” he says. And I say a quart of ice cream before bed each night will do that to a guy.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog piece about my sister-in-law’s corn pudding, which is darn good by the way. Her name is Sally and she’s married to Big Frank. The blog entry was called “Sister Sally’s Corn Pudding.” (Creative title, I thought.) It was a wholesome little piece about family and good food.

In passing, I made a few innocent and, I thought, flattering comments about Big Frank. But my wife Annie read the piece and said I as much as called Big Frank a liar, which I deny. I merely said he had a tendency to exaggerate, which was intended as a compliment.

Big Frank apparently took it as a compliment. He’s like me—still waiting for his fifteen minutes of fame. Unlike me, he isn’t waiting patiently. So, when he saw the blog piece, he went and told everybody he knew that he was famous and they should go read about him on my blog. The next day, a couple of folks called him back and said they didn’t think the piece was all that flattering. They said I basically called him a liar. That’s when Big Frank began to see things in a different light. Sister Sally said he was fit to be tied.

I told Annie about it. She shook her head, balled up her fists, planted ′em on her hips, narrowed her eyes, and said, “See, I told you.” Then she muttered “Lordy, Lordy, Lordy” under her breath and stalked off.

Well, I guess it goes without saying that my little indiscretion has created something of a family flap. Annie says it was just a matter of time. She says I don’t have the emotional intelligence God gave a stinkbug. She says I suffer from chronic insensitivity. She knew I’d step on somebody’s feelings sooner or later and isn’t surprised that I managed to do it sooner.

“Now you’ve gone and done it,” she said. “You’d better write your brother-in-law and apologize. I knew this blogging adventure of yours was gonna come to no good.”

So, I wrote Frank and apologized. And he wrote back and said he was writing me out of his will (which wasn’t much of a loss since I wasn’t in there in the first place). I guess he’s not quite over it yet.

Sister Sally says she isn’t too worried about Big Frank—he’ll bounce back. She is concerned that the flap will dampen enthusiasm for her recipe, which she says is deserving of attention and acclaim.

Well, as you can imagine, I felt bad—about the flap, that is. I told Annie I was turning over a new page. And she said I wasn’t “turning over a new page.” She said you either “turn over a new leaf” or “turn a page”—nobody “turns over a new page.”

So I said I was turning a page. I told Annie I was not writing anything controversial ever again. And she said that was a wish and a prayer.  Actually, this is exactly what she said:

“Fat chance.”

That comment seemed a little insensitive to me.

Summertime is coming. We can feel it in the air. That means strawberries aren’t far off. And that means we’ll be eating my Aunt Wiese’s Strawberry Pie here at the farm. This pie is simple to make. (I can do it.) And it’s delicious. Give it a try.

WIESE’S STRAWBERRY PIE
Serves 8

Ingredients

8 cups fresh strawberries
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 baked pie shell (homemade, if you’re up to it)

Cut the tops from the strawberries and cut in half.

In a blender, blend 1 cup strawberries and the water until smooth.

In a pot, combine sugar, cornstarch, and contents of blender. Over medium heat, bring to a simmer for a few minutes, stirring often until the mixture is well combined and nicely thickened.

Let the glaze cool. Then coat the already-baked pie shell with enough of the glaze to cover the bottom and sides.

Combine the remaining strawberries and glaze in a large bowl until strawberries are well coated. Then pour into pie shell and chill for a couple of hours in the refrigerator.

Cut and serve. Fabulous!

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My mother makes this fabulous stew—what she calls Brunswick stew even though she makes it with ground beef, not chicken.  Make this a day ahead, refrigerate, and reheat before serving. It’s fabulous and, with a couple of cornbread muffins, it’s a whole meal.

COCO’S BRUNSWICK STEW
Serves 6

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter
1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
3½ cups canned whole tomatoes with juice
1 cup canned whole kernel corn, drained
1 cup frozen Lima beans
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
pinch cayenne pepper

Melt butter in skillet over medium heat. Add the ground beef and onions. Cook until the beef is browned and the onions are translucent - about 10 minutes. Skim fat.

Move ground beef and onions to a large soup pot. Add the remaining ingredients.

Simmer over low heat for 2 hours.

This is good when you make it, but even better if you store it in your refrigerator overnight, reheat, and serve the next day.

Big, our eight-week-old Great Pyrenees puppy, has been here at the farm for four days now. The crying stopped after one long night. The dogs established their pecking order by day two. (Big finished in last place.) Even BC the Barn Cat tells Big what to do. It’s been a tough few days. When your name is Big, it’s hard to accept the fact that you’re really small.

Today, Big hit his stride. He left the area around my feet for good, I think. He wandered the farm checking everything out, took frequent naps, learned a few lessons the hard way (like falling backwards off the porch step and getting himself stuck between the slats in the garden fence), and ate and ate and ate again.

Big won’t be little for long.

I ran downstairs, through the den and into the kitchen. Bernard was there. She stood at the stove — her back to me. Charlie was there too. He sat at the table reading The News & Observer.

“Hey, we need to get moving,” I said. We’re going to be late. They aren’t going to be very happy with us.”

“You’re right,” Bernard said. “We’re going to be late. We must hurry along. Would you like a cup of tea?”

Charlie looked up at me, smiled, and went back to his reading.

“Bernard, we don’t have time for tea. They’re waiting for us.”

“We’ll hurry right along then. What kind of tea would you like? I’m having the rose hip tea…calms the nerves,” Bernard said.

Charlie seemed lost in his newspaper.

“Now come on Bernard. You know how he’ll huff and puff. He won’t like it if we don’t get there on time. I’ll get your coats.”

“That’s a good idea, Sam. Get our coats. They’re in the closet by the front door. I’ll fix you a cup of rose hip tea… calms the nerves,” Bernard said.

I hurried to the closet - my shoes slipping on hardwood between well-worn rugs. I found Bernard’s coat in the closet. Charlie’s coat was draped over his briefcase by the front door. I skated back to the kitchen.

Bernard stood at the pantry door—her back to me. Charlie was still reading.

“Maybe we should save our tea for later,” I said. “I’m afraid we’re going to hold them up. They’ll be waiting for us. And you know he’ll be tapping his foot and bitching about us—how we’re always late.”

“We’ll hurry along then. I’m sure you’re right. He’ll be steaming by the time we get there,” Bernard said, still rummaging around in the pantry. “I know I have some wedding cookies in here somewhere. Do you like wedding cookies, Sam? Charlie, do you know where I put those wedding cookies?”

“Come on, Bernard. We can have our tea and cookies for desert. I’ll bring the car around to the front door.”

“That’s a fine idea, Sam. You do that. You go get the car,” Bernard said.

I scurried out of the house and around to the garage; I backed Bernard’s ancient Chevy Impala—the mustard yellow one with the big white sidewalls—out of the garage and pulled it up in front of the house. I left the motor running and hurried back into the kitchen.

Bernard was still there. She was seated at the breakfast table. Charlie was still reading the newspaper. Two teacups sat next to a bag of cookies in front of him. I don’t think he knew they were there.

“I’ve got your car out front,” I said. “I’ve left the motor running. I’ll help you into your coats. You know everybody’s waiting on us. We should hurry along now.”

“You’re right, Sam. We must hurry along,” Bernard said. “As soon as we finish our tea, we should hurry along. The tea is hot, Sam. Be careful. Take small sips—just the tiniest little sips. We don’t want to burn our tongues before dinner.”

I settled into the chair next to Charlie across the table from Bernard. My tea was hot. I took a small sip.

Bernard placed a wedding cookie on the edge of my cup saucer. Powdered sugar dusted the table at the saucer’s edge.

“I bet he’s steaming,” Bernard said. “We must hurry along…as soon as we finish our tea.”

Charlie looked over at me, smiled, and went back to reading his newspaper.